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Category Archives: Carcinogenic Chemicals

Thursday, February 26, 2015

FoodFacts.com has had a lot to say about caramel color over the years. The artificial color is quite high on our avoid list for several important reasons. Caramel color can decrease the body’s immune response. People with gluten sensitivities or Celiac disease can experience an allergic reaction to caramel color. It can raise blood pressure. And it has been linked to cancer. There are four types of caramel color and two of the most common types have been proven especially harmful. The problem is that consumers can’t identify the type of caramel color used in any product because manufacturers aren’t required to identify it on ingredient lists. While caramel color is used in thousands of products, sodas are the most common place you’ll find the ingredient.

Thousands of Americans drink soda every day and these individuals do not just increase their sugar intake and their odds of packing unnecessary weight. They also put themselves at risk of developing cancer.

The ingredients of colas and other soft drinks typically include a caramel coloring, which gives these beverages their distinct caramel color.

Unfortunately, some types of this food coloring contain a chemical known as 4-methylimidazole (4-MeI), a potential carcinogen.

Now, an analysis published in the journal PLOS ONE on Feb. 18 has revealed that more than half of Americans between 6 and 64 years old sip amounts of soft drinks per day that could expose them to amounts of 4-MeI that could raise their risks of developing cancer.

Keeve Nachman, from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, and colleagues looked at a previous study conducted by researchers from the Consumer Reports that analyzed the concentration of 4-Mel in 12 brands of sodas and soft drink. They also analyzed the soft drinks consumption in the U.S. using data from the National Health and Examination Survey (NHANES) to estimate the potential cancer risks of soft drinks consumption.

The researchers found that the average soda consumption in the U.S. ranges from a little over 12-ounces(1 can) to almost two and a half cans of soda per day with the biggest consumers being those between 16 and 44 years old. Children between 3 to 5 years old were likewise found to drink soft drinks on a typical day averaging about two thirds of a can.

The researchers said that at the rate at which Americans consume soda, they expect the emergence of between 76 to 5,000 cancer cases in the U.S. over the next seven decades that can be attributed to exposure to 4-MeI alone.
“It appears that 4-MeI exposures associated with average rates of soft drink consumption pose excess cancer risks exceeding one case per 1,000,000 exposed individuals, which is a common acceptable risk goal used by some U.S. federal regulatory agencies,” the researchers wrote.

Nachman said that soft drink consumers get exposed to unwanted and avoidable cancer risks from an ingredient that is added to beverages and other foods for aesthetic purposes and this raises concerns on the continued use of caramel coloring in sodas. The Food and Drug Administration said that it will take a closer look at the use of this artificial coloring in a variety of foods.

Soda is unnecessary in any diet. Skipping the sugar and calories in sugared sodas and the artificial sweeteners in diet sodas, the ingredient lists are laden with chemicals. Caramel color is one of the most popular chemicals in those ingredient lists. Watch for it — not only in sodas, but in a variety of other foods and beverages as well.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Consumers may associate the term caramel coloring on an ingredient label with the caramel they may make themselves in their kitchens by cooking down sugar in a pot on their stoves. It’s not the same thing. Caramel coloring is an artificial food coloring that lends a brown hue to the foods and beverages in which it is included. It’s commonly found in colas and other dark-colored sodas like root beer, but it’s also included in a variety of different food products. It’s a controversial ingredient and it’s more than a little complicated.

For years, caramel coloring has been debated as a possible carcinogen. The FDA now says it is taking a new look at caramel coloring after Consumer Reports said it found higher than expected levels of a potentially cancer-causing agent in some sodas.

The group said its tests of soft drinks using caramel coloring show some contain higher-than-necessary levels of a compound called 4-methylimidazole or 4-MEI.

The FDA says there’s no evidence the compound is unsafe as used, but a spokeswoman said the agency would look closer after the Consumer Reports complaints.

“The FDA has studied the use of caramel as a flavor and as a color additive in foods for decades,” the agency said in a statement. It said it would test a variety of foods, including sodas, for 4-MEI, but added, “Currently, the FDA has no reason to believe that 4-MEI, at the levels expected in food from the use of caramel colors, poses a health risk to consumers.”
But California does classify the chemical as a possible carcinogen and Consumer Reports says its tests of certain sodas showed higher than allowed levels in some bought in California.
And it says companies should remove the chemical if there’s any doubt.

“This is about coloring food brown,” Urvashi Rangan, a toxicologist who heads Consumer Reports’ food safety and sustainability center, said in a telephone interview. “We think of this as an unnecessary risk. It’s a food additive — we should know that it is safe.”

And Pepsi, maker of some of the drinks Consumers Reports tested, says the consumer group is mistaken.

“We have serious questions about Consumer Response’s conclusion,” Pepsi spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said in an email.

She said the soft drink maker had lowered levels of 4-MEI in its products. “PepsiCo abides by the law everywhere we do business. When the regulatory requirements changed in California, PepsiCo moved immediately to meet the new requirements in California. We also decided to voluntarily apply those same standards in the rest of the country, and we are on track to complete that rollout by February 2014,” she said.

Pepsi also questioned how Consumer Reports decided that some soft drinks exceeded the limits set by California.

The group said other brands of soft drink appeared to have lowered their levels of 4-MEI to acceptable ranges.

Rangan said she did not know whether the re-formulated drinks were safer, but she was glad the levels of 4-MEI were reduced.

“How they are tweaking that formulation, we don’t know,” she said. “Are they doing something else? We don’t know. We are not privy to that information,” she added. “We don’t even know which caramel coloring they are using, exactly.”

That’s because there are four different types of caramel coloring: plain caramel, a type that reacts sugar with sulfites, a type that reacts sugars with ammonium and one that reacts sugars with both ammonium and sulfites (that’s the one used in most sodas). The last two types are considered the most controversial. Both of these contain the known carcinogens 2-MEI and 4-MEI. But manufacturers aren’t required to list which type they are using in any product.

FoodFacts.com has never understood how potentially cancer causing chemicals are allowed in our food supply. We are well aware that soda is not the only product category containing caramel color. Suggesting that avoiding the ingredient is as simple as avoiding darker-hued sodas like cola just doesn’t tell the whole story. This is absolutely an ingredient that deserves further scrutiny from the FDA. We believe in transparency in our food supply. The fact that manufacturers aren’t required to disclose the type of caramel coloring they are using doesn’t sit well with us and it shouldn’t make consumers happy either. If we can’t achieve a ban for the more dangerous types of the ingredient, we should at least be made aware of the specific content of the coloring used.

Monday, July 8, 2013

FoodFacts.com has always maintained that we can all find better beverages than soda. There are, in fact, beverages that don’t contain phosphoric acid or sodium benzoate or high fructose corn syrup or aspartame, or any of the other ingredients we find so disturbing that show up in soda ingredient lists. Caramel color is a controversial ingredient that you’ll find listed in cola ingredient lists (as well as any number of products in a variety of food and beverage categories). It’s an ingredient that should convince all of us to stay away from cola sodas all by itself.

There are four different types of caramel coloring – plain caramel, a type that reacts sugar with sulfites, a type that reacts sugars with ammonium and one that reacts sugars with both ammonium and sulfites (that’s the one used in most colas). Caramel coloring has been linked to raising blood pressure, possibly having a negative effect on the immune system and, most disturbingly, containing carcinogenic byproducts. And that’s what’s put it – and Pepsi — in the news.

Information has been released showing that currently the levels of 4-Mehtylimidazole (4-MEI) levels in Pepsi are anywhere from four to more than eight times higher than the California safety level in samples tested from ten different states. The independent testing was commissioned by the Center of Environmental Health. While the test results were actually an improvement from the levels found in Pepsi a year ago, the levels are still cause for concern.

Pepsi has responded to the Center of Environmental Health explaining that its caramel coloring suppliers have been working on the process of modifying the manufacturing process to reduce the amount of 4-MEI found in its soda. They are looking at February of 2014 as the date that the modified caramel coloring will be included in its products throughout the United States.

4-MEI is a chemical byproduct of the industrial production of caramel coloring. Last year a National Toxicology Program animal study found “clear evidence” that the chemical is a carcinogen. In response to those findings, California passed a law requiring soda manufacturers to include the cancer-causing ingredient on their labels. It was at that time that both Coke and Pepsi pledged to have their caramel coloring suppliers reformulate the ingredient they use in their sodas. The Center of Environmental Health’s recent testing found that Coca-Cola did a much better job of cleaning up their act than Pepsi.

While both have since posted improvements in the state of California, which means their levels of 4-MEI are now below California’s legal levels, CEH claims Pepsi still trails in other key markets around the U.S.

Most soda is a chemical concoction. There’s nothing nutritionally valuable about it. Some of the ingredients included in it are harsh enough to be used as cleaning agents. We’ve recently blogged about people who have only included soda in their diets for years having negative heart responses that cleared completely when they stopped drinking cola. The type of caramel coloring used in colas has now been linked fairly clearly with cancer. This particular testing information from the Center of Environmental Health is one more reason to stay away from cola. FoodFacts.com believes that it is our own nutritional awareness that will keep us safe and healthy as continue to focus on what’s really in our food and drink.